World of Apple

Three ARM Processors in iPhone

The EE Time reports that the president of England’s ARM Holdings confirmed that “at least three” processor cores developed at his company are inside the iPhone.

Warren East of ARM Holdings Plc. stated in an interview that, “ARM is in 90 percent of the world’s [mobile phone] handsets; we’re in WiFi, baseband processors and applications processors and most of the world’s MP3 players. So it’s at least three,”

When asked to say if three was an underestimate or even a large underestimate, East said, “Apple will talk about the contents of the iPhone when Apple’s ready to talk about the contents of the iPhone.”

Apple Store Down Under

According to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald, Apple is putting finishing touches on plans for its first Apple Store in Australia.

“We have submitted concepts for the store we’d like to build in Sydney and are working with the city to gain their approval,” stated an Apple spokesman.

Although the exact location was not confirmed by the paper, ifoAppleStore claims that 467 George Street in Sydney is the future location for the store.

LoopRumors has “discovered” a letter sent to the FCC from Apple on October 12th 2006. The letter asks for numerous documents related to the iPhone to remain confidential throughout the entire process.

Purported letter to the FCC from Apple

“…the public disclosure of the above mentioned documents might be harmful to [Apple] and would give a competitor an unfair advantage in the market.”

The letter insists that details should ideally be kept confidential until at least June 15, 2007, the final day of WWDC.

The legal disagreements between Apple and Cisco have been put on temporary hold, the lawsuit has not been stopped but the two companies have agreed to extend talks.

“Apple and Cisco have agreed to extend the time for Apple to respond to the lawsuit to allow for discussions between the companies with the aim of reaching agreement on trademark rights and interoperability,” said a joint statement.

Cisco decided to take legal action against Apple after they released the iPhone last month at Macworld San Francisco.

“Cisco entered into negotiations with Apple in good faith after Apple repeatedly asked permission to use Cisco’s iPhone name,” stated Cisco senior VP and general counsel Mark Chandler.

iTunes to Sell Super Bowl Content

The iTunes Store US is going to have highlights from the February 4 Super Bowl. Fans of American Football will be able to download the highlights the day after the game.

The highlights will cost $1.99, a 90-minute video of the game will also be made available.

iPhone Processor In-Depth

Ars Technica has posted an in-depth article into what the Apple iPhone could be running under the hood.

The article looks into ARM, Samsung, and Xscale processors.

Journalism Prevails Apple

Apple Inc. was ordered to pay $700,000 in court costs to bloggers in which the company had tried to prosecute, claiming that they had published trade secrets.

Apple attempted to subpoena AppleInsider, and O’Grady’s Powerpage over the rumoured Asteroid device.

Apple claimed that reports by both the sites violated California state trade secret law, arguing that this law took priority over the journalist’s First Amendment protection.

The decisions in the case so far mean that “bloggers” can continue to report stories and protect their sources without legal action.

Cisco CEO Speaks on iPhone Trademark

Cisco CEO, John Chambers believes that the companies disagreement with Apple over the iPhone trademark is simply a “minor skirmish”.

Speaking to the IHT, Chambers stated that the dispute could have been avoided if Apple were “willing to negotiate”.

“We told Apple for five years: ‘This is our trademark. We’ll license it to you, but it is ours,’” he said. “All we ask is that people respect our trademarks and our intellectual property. We would have traded that for just interoperability,” said the Cisco CEO.

He describes Apple as difficult to “do business” with.

Cingular to Give iPhoner Buyers Free Service?

Jim Cramer has noted on his blog that AT&T will use the iPhone to target customers, and has implied that they will most likely offer significant discounts in service.

Now, AT&T’s all about market share, and if you read between the lines, I think you see a strategy coming where the device’s $500 price point is preserved but the service contract is greatly reduced. I think that AT&T — and not Apple — is the key to this next leg, and CEO Stan Sigman can make it happen.

Rogers Wireless has reportedly sealed a deal with Apple to carry the iPhone exclusively.

The information which came via a customer advisory notice which was sent to subscribers earlier this week.

Rogers Wireless is the largest wireless provider in Canada and wrote in the notice that availability and price of the iPhone were still being arranged, but did add that it would be the only carrier to offer the iPhone in Canada.

Andy Ihnatko of the Chicago Sun-Times had some hands on time with the iPhone immediately after Jobs’ Keynote, the notable tech reported spent 45 minutes with the device.

Ihnatko writes “The touch-interface works flawlessly, in terms of both technical function and user interface design. Whatever you want to do — select an album to play, make or take a call, compose and send an e-mail — your first impulse is almost always the correct one.”

He also notes that although the screen only works with direct skin contact it is made of a much more resistant material than that used on the iPod.

‘”So long as you don’t have a pocket full of broken glass, it’ll be OK in there,” I was told.’

Andy Ihnatko goes onto mention the comfort in using the on-screen keyboard, which features impressive smart prediction, correcting most spelling mistakes.

The current most disliked feature of the iPhone is the lacking ability for third parties to install third party software.

“I asked point-blank if third parties would be able to write and distribute iPhone apps and was told, point-blank, no.”

“However, it appears that there’ll be some third-party opportunities. I’m going to take a guess that iPhone software will be distributed the same way as iPod games: no “unsigned” apps will install, but apps will start appearing on the iTunes Store after successfully passing through a mysterious process of Apple certification — one that ensures that they meet a certain standard of quality and won’t, you know, secretly send your credit-card info to Nigeria.”

Also of heightened interest is the OS that the iPhone runs, Apple stated in the Keynote that the iPhone runs OS X but this has been later disputed on many levels.

Andy writes, “The iPhone runs the same OS as the Macintosh. And not in the way that Windows Mobile is, I suppose, technically, if you want to split hairs about it, classified somewhere in the Microsoft Windows phylum.

Nope, everything I’ve learned (both in official briefings and “you and I never spoke, all right?” sort of discussions) says that it truly does run Leopard, the upcoming 10.5 OS that will be released for the Macintosh late in the spring.”

But goes onto the issue of third party software again, “And no, the iPhone’s Widgets aren’t the same as the Mac’s Dashboard widgets. But they do use DashCode and other desktop widget tech, so who knows? I’m really hoping that widgets will be more open to third-party developers than apps.”

Just a few days after the release of the Apple iPhone, questions are being raised related to the development opportunities are available and what software the iPhone runs.

According to Apple VP of Worldwide iPod Marketing, Greg Joswiak, the iPhone operating system is a full version of OS X that weighs in at “considerably less” than half a GB and sits on flash memory.

Joswiak noted; “Apple has a proven and very smooth update mechanism for everything from our computers to our iPods. We will follow that kind of model here, which is an advantage a lot of phones don’t have.”

The Apple VP went onto describe how it was possible for the OS to be reduced in size so much, he said that it was possible due to the expertise at Apple and none of the functionality or core functions have been removed. “Remember that OS X on a Mac features a lot of applications that we don’t have to ship on the iPhone,” he added.

The OS sits on in-built flash memory which is considered much more versatile than a hard drive and allows the size of a device to be reduced considerably. “Flash has some nice advantages for us in putting it in that form factor. It’s very small and very durable,” Joswiak said.

Yesterday Cisco announced that it is suing Apple over the use of the iPhone trademark.

“Cisco entered into negotiations with Apple in good faith after Apple repeatedly asked permission to use Cisco’s iPhone name,” said Mark Chandler, senior vice president and general counsel, Cisco. “There is no doubt that Apple’s new phone is very exciting, but they should not be using our trademark without our permission.”

Apple spokesman Steve Dowling called the Cisco lawsuit “silly,” adding there are several companies using the term iPhone for VOIP products, and Cisco’s trademark is “tenuous at best.” “We’re the first company to ever use the iPhone name for a cellphone,” he said. “If Cisco wants to challenge us on it, we’re very confident we’ll prevail.”

Cisco has announced that it is suing Apple and seeking an injunction to prevent the company from using the name “iPhone”. A few days ago it was revealed that Cisco and Apple were close to closing a deal but it appears Apple’s early announcement has driven Cisco to close all negotiations.

“Cisco entered into negotiations with Apple in good faith after Apple repeatedly asked permission to use Cisco’s iPhone name,” said Mark Chandler, senior vice president and general counsel, Cisco. “There is no doubt that Apple’s new phone is very exciting, but they should not be using our trademark without our permission.

“Today’s iPhone is not tomorrow’s iPhone. The potential for convergence of the home phone, cell phone, work phone and PC is limitless, which is why it is so important for us to protect our brand,” Chandler concluded.

Cisco has filed the lawsuit in the United States District Court for Northern District of California to prevent Apple from using the trademark.